There are some cases where you can't just throw hardware at the problem. For instance, a hardware XML parser could speed up many operations on a web server. However, if you have a cluster of 20 servers, and each one would need its own hardware accelerator, the cost could be prohibitive.

"There is no shame in being self-taught, only in not trying to learn in the first place." -- Atrus, Myst: The Book of D'ni.